he was sent to the psychiatric hospital in Santiago.
Domingo had hated visiting him at the asylum. Patients caterwauled out the windows and defecated in the hallways. They bludgeoned each other with their plastic food trays. In his father’s ward, rusted buckets overflowed with vomit and shit. It was no secret that his wing of the hospital was dedicated to political prisoners, although a few lunatics were sifted in for appearances’ sake. Most of the men were ordinary, like Papi, except for their hatred of El Comandante. It was this that had qualified them for special revolutionary treatment: psychotropic drugs, electroshock therapy, beatings by the criminally insane released in their ward.
After a year, Papi became fixated with a yellow warbler that bathed in a puddle beneath his window. He was convinced that the bird was his grandfather, Chen Pan, returning to warn him of “everywhere evil.” Mostly, Papi sat under the sapodilla tree in the courtyard, watching the pearly trails of the striped snails and talking to himself in Chinese.
Once, Domingo showed up at the hospital and found his father strapped to his bed, his arms and legs swollen, his temples burned from electrodes. His sheets were drenched with blood and urine, and a river of saliva poured from his mouth instead of words.
“Part of his treatment,” the attending nurse snapped.
No one bothered telling Domingo anything more.
A thick mist twisted down from the mountains, stifling the usual anthem of jungle noises. There was no breeze, no echo to Domingo’s own cough. Normally a silence this complete would have jolted every last man in the platoon awake, but everyone continued to sleep soundly. Domingo wondered whether he could ever return home to the life before this war. But he suspected that it was too late to go back the way he had come.
Earlier in the evening, Joey Szczurak had kept Domingo company. Joey was a compulsive talker, an insomniac pill popper from Queens. He carried his P-38 can opener on a gold chain around his throat, right next to his crucifix, and charged anyone who’d lost theirs a cigarette to use his. He claimed he’d won an elocution medal at twelve, had tried heroin at fourteen.
Joey was the skinniest person Domingo had ever seen, skinnier even than Mick Jagger. His face was raw with acne. Joey’s parents had lived in Warsaw during World War II. They’d begged their son not to go to Vietnam, but Joey had dropped out of Fordham and enlisted. It bothered Domingo that Joey thought nothing of unbuttoning his fatigues and masturbating to the memory of his mother’s seamed stockings, his sperm arcing into the moldering sandbags.
Domingo remembered his own mother in her militia uniform, marching off to fight in the Bay of Pigs. People said that she’d killed a man, shot a
gusano
in the back who’d tried to escape. There’d been a parade for Mamá and the other veterans when they returned to Guantánamo, followed by a luncheon with the governor. Domingo had asked his mother about the shooting. Mamá’s face had strained the way he’d seen it do during her more difficult deliveries, when she’d chain-smoked cigars and flung herbs in every direction. But she hadn’t answered him.
The rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The trees were drenched and tremulant. They looked sheepish somehow, as though they’d overindulged in the storm. Domingo wished there were someone he could speak to in Spanish, but there was only that wiry Puerto Rican kid from New Jersey who missed his
arroz con gandulas.
Domingo was losing a lot of his Spanish, forgetting all his marine biology. Polyps. Holothurians. Gorgonians. The curses he still remembered. He guessed they’d be the last to go.
Domingo considered the enemy, imagined them speaking to him in Spanish, fast and with a Cuban accent, hardly an “s” every hundred words. They would tell him things—like how the wildflowers in Vietnam had changed colors from one spring to the next or
Domingo had hated visiting him at the asylum. Patients caterwauled out the windows and defecated in the hallways. They bludgeoned each other with their plastic food trays. In his father’s ward, rusted buckets overflowed with vomit and shit. It was no secret that his wing of the hospital was dedicated to political prisoners, although a few lunatics were sifted in for appearances’ sake. Most of the men were ordinary, like Papi, except for their hatred of El Comandante. It was this that had qualified them for special revolutionary treatment: psychotropic drugs, electroshock therapy, beatings by the criminally insane released in their ward.
After a year, Papi became fixated with a yellow warbler that bathed in a puddle beneath his window. He was convinced that the bird was his grandfather, Chen Pan, returning to warn him of “everywhere evil.” Mostly, Papi sat under the sapodilla tree in the courtyard, watching the pearly trails of the striped snails and talking to himself in Chinese.
Once, Domingo showed up at the hospital and found his father strapped to his bed, his arms and legs swollen, his temples burned from electrodes. His sheets were drenched with blood and urine, and a river of saliva poured from his mouth instead of words.
“Part of his treatment,” the attending nurse snapped.
No one bothered telling Domingo anything more.
A thick mist twisted down from the mountains, stifling the usual anthem of jungle noises. There was no breeze, no echo to Domingo’s own cough. Normally a silence this complete would have jolted every last man in the platoon awake, but everyone continued to sleep soundly. Domingo wondered whether he could ever return home to the life before this war. But he suspected that it was too late to go back the way he had come.
Earlier in the evening, Joey Szczurak had kept Domingo company. Joey was a compulsive talker, an insomniac pill popper from Queens. He carried his P-38 can opener on a gold chain around his throat, right next to his crucifix, and charged anyone who’d lost theirs a cigarette to use his. He claimed he’d won an elocution medal at twelve, had tried heroin at fourteen.
Joey was the skinniest person Domingo had ever seen, skinnier even than Mick Jagger. His face was raw with acne. Joey’s parents had lived in Warsaw during World War II. They’d begged their son not to go to Vietnam, but Joey had dropped out of Fordham and enlisted. It bothered Domingo that Joey thought nothing of unbuttoning his fatigues and masturbating to the memory of his mother’s seamed stockings, his sperm arcing into the moldering sandbags.
Domingo remembered his own mother in her militia uniform, marching off to fight in the Bay of Pigs. People said that she’d killed a man, shot a
gusano
in the back who’d tried to escape. There’d been a parade for Mamá and the other veterans when they returned to Guantánamo, followed by a luncheon with the governor. Domingo had asked his mother about the shooting. Mamá’s face had strained the way he’d seen it do during her more difficult deliveries, when she’d chain-smoked cigars and flung herbs in every direction. But she hadn’t answered him.
The rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The trees were drenched and tremulant. They looked sheepish somehow, as though they’d overindulged in the storm. Domingo wished there were someone he could speak to in Spanish, but there was only that wiry Puerto Rican kid from New Jersey who missed his
arroz con gandulas.
Domingo was losing a lot of his Spanish, forgetting all his marine biology. Polyps. Holothurians. Gorgonians. The curses he still remembered. He guessed they’d be the last to go.
Domingo considered the enemy, imagined them speaking to him in Spanish, fast and with a Cuban accent, hardly an “s” every hundred words. They would tell him things—like how the wildflowers in Vietnam had changed colors from one spring to the next or
Similar Books
